Izzie was already home when Alex walked in the front door. She was sitting in the lounge room in the dark flipping through channels on the television. Alex stood in the doorway for a few minutes watching her. He was trying to decide if he was seriously going to go through with what George wanted him to do. He'd brought the alcohol, they were defiantly going to go through with the drinking but he wasn't sure about the other stuff. He didn't want to confuse his relationship with her, he still cared about her, he didn't want to take advantage of her.

He put his bag down and walked into the room. Izzie heard him and turned around and smiled at him but her eyes looked sad.

"Hey Alex."

"Hey Iz." He walked over the sofa and sat down next to her. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing." She turned off the television and then noticed the brown paper bag Alex was holding. "What have you got there?"

"This?" Alex lifted up the bag and pulled out the bottles of whiskey and vodka he'd brought on the way home. "I thought we could do some drinking tonight."

"Really?"

"Yeah, why not, we both look like we need some good drinking" Alex put the two bottles on the table and disappeared into the kitchen to get some glasses.

Izzie looked at the bottles and smiled. 'This ought to be good.' She thought to herself, wondering what had happened to Alex to make him want to get drunk.

He came back into the lounge room with two glasses for the whiskey and shot glasses for the vodka. He poured two large glasses of the whiskey. He downed his in a matter of seconds and then waited for Izzie to do the same. For the next half hour they hardly spoke and as Alex kept pouring glass after glass, the alcohol slowly worked its way into their systems and Izzie started laughing. She began erupting into fits of giggles for no apparent reason.

"Alex," she said during one of these. "Why are we doing this?"

"Because drinking is good." He smiled at her as he emptied the bottle of whisky into her glass.

"I know that." She shook her head and took another sip of the drink. "But why now, why tonight, why like this, what happened?"

"Oh right." Alex got what she wanted to know. He started laughing, remembering the conversation he'd had with George earlier in the day.

"What?!" Izzie playfully slapped Alex's shoulder; she thought he was laughing at her.

"O'Malley asked me to get you drunk." His speech was punctuated by half laughs. "He told me he thinks you're in love with him and he wanted me to get you drunk and sleep with you so you'd stop being in love with him."

Alex started laughing again, to him he couldn't think of anything which sounded more ridiculous but Izzie stopped laughing and instead she stared at the blank TV screen.

It took him a few minutes to notice she'd gone completely silent but when he did notice he stopped laughing. "Iz," he said as he placed a hand on her shoulder. "It's not true is it?"

She slowly took a sip of her drink. "So what if it is." She stood up and began to walk away, this fun little drinking game they'd been having suddenly wasn't so fun anymore.

'Holy Shit' Alex thought to himself as Izzie walked out the room. George wasn't playing with him; Izzie really did think she was in love with him. He waited in the lounge for a minute to work out what to do, then walked over to the kitchen to talk to Izzie.

She was standing at the sink drinking down glasses of water. "Iz," he said walking over to her. "I wasn't going to do it. I wouldn't take advantage of you like that. But I didn't think it was true. You do realize how impossible you and George is?"

"Yes. I know he's married and he loves Callie, but that doesn't change the way I feel. When I was with him…" her voice trailed off as she suddenly realized she was having this conversation with Alex. Alex of all people, when she said the words out loud, when she said them to him she could see how silly they sounded. "…it just felt right."

Alex nodded. He wasn't going to judge her; he wasn't going to laugh at her anymore. She clearly didn't need to be laughed at right now but she did need something.

"You know what you need?" he began.

"What?"

"A rebound guy." He waited a moment for his words to sink in before he continued. "Ever since I've known you, you've been jumping head long into one relationship from the next. You need something that's not serious; you need to have some fun."

"You think?" Izzie put her glass of water down and began walking towards him, she went to kiss him because she thought that was what he wanted but instead he put his hands out to stop her.

"No Iz," he said, "I won't be your rebound guy."

"Oh." She looked at him confused; she didn't know what to do next.

Alex could feel the awkwardness in the air. He needed to do something so he reached for the telephone and began dialing.

"What are you doing?" Izzie asked reaching for the phone.

"I'm calling us a taxi." Alex offered with a smile. "We're going to go find you a rebound guy."